Children’s Day Message: Make The Children Happy Through Quality Sports Programme

The May 27 children's day has come, and as children gather to celebrate in various nooks and crannies, I begin to ponder on what the future of Nigerian Sports would look like without these kids. They are the future of tomorrow and if Sports is part of our future, we must then begin adequate plan. There have been series of Inter-House Sports organized by various schools in the bid to develop our future Sports men and women of this country, but adequate attention need to be given to it if anything good must be achieved from the kids in the future.

First, schools need to ensure that sports masters and mistresses have the adequate qualification to hold such position at grassroots level, as this is the time in the life of the children where decisions need to be made about there future. If they have the wrong sports master administering the dose for basic things in sports, it could just affect what the kids take at grassroots level. I once attended a school's inter-house sports (names withheld) , and I was shocked to see a game master wearing scandals on sports attire. Second, school authorities must learn to protect and preserve the life-span of sports equipment, this is one major area that management have failed in this part of the world. I know of at least notable schools in Lagos where Basketball Courts are currently being used as "car park", while I know of another school where the football pitch has been converted to farm land, courtesy of the school's principal desire to grow vegetables on the piece of land. Too numerous are the observation made in the course of independent research on Sports development in Nigerian schools. But the future is in our hands, the children are the future and our plans could make them realize their dreams.